Firm Survival and Change in Ghana, 2003-2013
Elwyn Davies () and
Andrew Kerr
No 2015-06, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford
Abstract:
How did Ghanaian manufacturing firms change in the period between 2003 and 2013? This paper presents results from a survey of 1000 firms in Ghana, conducted in 2013, which were randomly selected from the 2003 Ghanaian National Industrial Census. This survey allows us to track survival and exit of firms between 2003 and 2013. We find strong regional differences and also differences for small, medium and large firms. The exit rate of firms in Kumasi, the second city, is lower than in Accra, but the growth rate of firms in Kumasi was also lower. Small firms were more likely to exit than large firms. Overall, the picture we paint of manufacturing in Ghana is not a positive one: total employment by firms operating before 2003 decreased from 134 863 in 2003 to 74 319 in 2013. It remains a question to what extent this was compensated by new employment by firms that entered after 2003, who were not surveyed. We also consider the firm size distribution evolution, and show that selection plays some role in explaining the positive correlation between firm size and age, but that this is less strong than in earlier studies.
Keywords: Firm survival; Firm growth; Ghana; Firm size; Firm size distribution; Selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L25 O11 O14 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-bec, nep-ent and nep-sbm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:csa:wpaper:2015-06
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